The present disclosure relates to a garment convertible to bag. Specifically, an outer garment convertible to shoulder bag. It provides the user the advantage of wearing the garment as a conventional jacket designed to further convert into a functional bag with little indication that either item is of the convertible type.
Conventional outer garments provide warmth when needed but they do not address the issue of dealing with changing temperatures and circumstances throughout the day. When the weather becomes warmer, outerwear garments such as jackets have to be hand-carried without providing any additional function. When having to do so, users may often feel discomfort especially when supplementary items are also to be carried. In addition, changing events and circumstances throughout the day provide further hassle when having to sustain a garment that is not in functional use.
Several convertible garments have been proposed to address these issues. However, most inventions focus on ease of carrying or convenient storage during travel. This is done either by options of incorporation into a self-contained pouch or a folding apparatus to create a portable circumstance. However, this does not address the issue of providing additional function when the garment is in its converted form. One must still carry the converted garment as an additional item without any added functional use.
Many garments that are convertible to a functional bag are limited by the use of pockets to house additional items. Nevertheless, these pockets do not offer enough space or long-term durability. Argento, Strandt and Harris propose outerwear garments that when converted to a bag, provide the use of the garment's pockets as a device to carry additional items. This not only limits the space availability for larger items but it also creates a structural issue in the design. The pockets on both sides have to be filled by items of approximately the same weight in order to maintain the structural balance of the converted bag. If one pocket is filled with significantly heavier matter, it will pull the side of the bag down rendering the bag structure increasingly difficult to use.
Several inventions that use the body of the garment to form the carrying container for the bag have been proposed. However, they feature visible hardware on the outside of the garment which further separates it from a conventional garment. Gazzola discloses a jacket-to-bag conversion that includes exposed zip fasteners along the shoulders, side areas and lower portion of the jacket creating visibly bulky seams along each edge. In addition to jeopardizing comfort, the hardware provides an aesthetic style disadvantage thus making the user more hesitant to wear it. Ezell suggests a jacket convertible to backpack that includes visible straps and a set of exposed D-rings on the back portion of the garment. The exposed hardware not only makes the jacket less aesthetically pleasing, it also limits its usability to outdoor activities or only settings appropriate for such design.
While most of these garments address the issue of appropriate storage, the converted bag closures are limited by the use of zippers or snap-like fasteners. This provides no other alternative to provide a fast and efficient bag closure. The use of additional fastening hardware not only adds to the cost of constructing the garment, it further increases bulkiness and discomfort when the item is in garment form. Additionally, proposed inventions like Ezell's Jac Pac lacks a closure all together thus providing no option to safely store items within an efficiently closed compartment.
Most convertible garments use a belt as the strap for carrying means further limiting the invention to only garments that have a belt. Such garments cannot be functionally converted to a carrying article unless the belt is always incorporated into the design. In an attempt to address this issue, Harris discloses a garment that uses the sleeves as a method for carrying the converted bag on one's shoulder. Nevertheless, this limits the invention to only garments that have longer sleeves and provides no alternatives for strap adjustment or removability.